John 17.21 comes to mind…

Ever since being introduced to the grand world of post-Evangelical thought, my American myopic vision of Christianity was completely shattered as I started to see God at work in every truthful manifestation of the Gospel among His people. As such, I’m very appreciative of the “high church” traditions that are often met with suspicion among my other Christian friends. Roman Catholicism, in particular, has such a high lofty vision of God unmatched by anything I grew up with that I gravitated strongly toward Rome psychologically if not theologically.

Unfortunately, while I am happy to claim some who are Roman Catholics as my brothers and sisters in Christ, one who used to be a good friend, who made a big deal about being an exProtestant and being the sole bastion of Christian truth and orthodoxy, made a horrible personal impression about Catholics. (I still find it odd that he made a bigger deal about me being “non-Catholic” than me being gay. But then again, we did share similar views on relationships and marriage.) While he’s mellowed out some (no more emotional abuse toward me or his girlfriends, plus, he’s married and a father now) in the occasional times we’ve spoken, I can still tell he’s a bit zealous. Honestly, I’m jealous of him still.

So where am I going with this? Well, Aaron Taylor over at Spiritual Friendship had recently written a blog post about how the Christian faith should meet and engage the concept of eros, especially same-sex eros in a different way. SF is heavily weighted toward a Roman Catholic understanding of God, theology and how the world works. I find it an interesting and healthy investment intellectually and emotionally, even if sometimes the theological perspective is different. However, my RC friend (who converted a few years ago), has always made a big fuss over how Protestants are always divisive and full of factions and how all the divisions and different ideas injure the Church and speak against how true Christians (aka, Roman Catholics) behave.

I’d always taken issue at this on principle: distinction and difference aren’t always division and divisiveness. But in regards to Mr. Taylor’s post, the discussion that has taken place in the comments only served to confirm something that’s really only common (spiritual) sense. Here we have Roman Catholics (mostly), who seem to be individuals that are well-informed about the world and their theological views, who also seem to be people who love the Master a good deal.

And yet they’re having a (mostly polite) disagreement over theological and spiritual matters.

If one didn’t know they were Roman Catholics, one could assume this was one of the better discussions taking place in any number of Christian message boards and forums online anywhere:

A polite discourse where people are trying to wrestle with the evidence, with what they know, with whatever lenses they use to interpret that data and how to reconcile that with how the world apparently works. Disagreements flow and blossom from where one’s view is different than another’s but that doesn’t necessarily make either party wrong. It just makes them both responsible to the humble search for truth and the humbly acceptance of whatever conclusions they reach.

It’s nice that being one in Christ doesn’t mean getting subsumed into a hive mind.